


Goodbye, Norma Jean

by Monaro



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:21:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23880733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monaro/pseuds/Monaro
Summary: An old-timer reminisces on the worst steam engine on the line.A story about logging railroading on the Olympic Peninsula.





	Goodbye, Norma Jean

Norma Jean was trouble from the beginning.

The first time I saw her was in 1940 or so. She came straight from the Northern Pacific. She was a mallet, big and strong, and hinged in the middle so she could go round tight curves. But, God, she was massive. 

I was caught. I was a young man back then, and was impressed merely by the size. But even then, deep-down, I knew she was trouble.

Old Rudy called it; she was too big. Each set of cylinders would pound the rails as she thundered along, and wear them down to nothing. Our little rails and grades were fine for the Mikes and the 2-8-0s, but Norma Jean would hit the ground at the drop of a dime. If she got away from you, she was on the ground. If she took a curve too fast in the rain, she’d come over on her side. I once saw her spread the rails sitting still. She’d been waiting at the throat of the yard to go ahead, and it shut us down for two days, trying to lever her back on.

Management loved her though; they thought they were saving so much money, running a few, big trains every day instead of a ton of little ones. They must have believed in her, because the summer after she came, the section gang laid heavier rail, to keep her fat ass from hurting any of us.

She was bored from the beginning, too. When she was on the NP, Norma Jean was a pusher in the Cascades. She would snort and pant big freights to the summit, ease back down, and wait for the next one to do it all over again. She might have worked on Stimson Hill outside Elma, that’s what management said, but we didn’t really know or care. The truth was, she wasn’t suited to logging- at least our kind. She was too fucking big- she’d walk away with any train you gave her, but she’d just as easily pull the drawbars off cars. She’d slip at a start too- but after a while, the engineers didn’t care.

She was old too. She was over forty when we got her, and was used the hell up. She’d crack her frame, easily. But more often, she’d blow snot all over herself- some awful sludge that all saturated steam engines made, but old Norma Jean, blunderbuss that she was, produced the worst of the stuff. Stuff so bad, that it dried on the boiler-jacket and made her a pain to wash. They tried hard to keep her clean- she was our flagship engine, they said.. But after a while, they just gave up.

The Northern Pacific asked us to sell her back; that was during the war, and they needed her worse than ever- but so did we, so the management declined. I wish they hadn’t, because what I’m about to tell you, I don’t know if even I believe.

I worked on Norma Jean for many years. I was her fireman, then her driver. She was a blunderbuss, that I already said, but there was something about her. All engines are temperamental, but that thing, I swear to God… That thing was out to get you. You’d have it lit up in the morning, and heat.. The heat was angry- it was angry you’d disturbed it.. Like, if you brought somebody back, only to find they enjoyed death. And so, she’d cause every sort of problem she could, just to spite you.

She’d come off one morning- a dismal, rainy morning in Washington, like so many, except in the peak of spring, or into summer. She was out a long ways, almost to the top of the line- and I was firing her while Buster drove.

When she came off, Buster swore and walked her length to find what had done it. We couldn’t tell, but her front truck was off. That was easy, that was fortunate.. But we were out in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere, and hadn’t anything to lever her- so we decided to wait. The brakeman and the conductor put torpedos down and stood at each end of the train to warn people. I was out in the rain too, just staring at her- wondering if we could take off a piece of rail, and maybe use that to put her back on.. And I swear, there was a glinting- a bit of a shimmering in her marker lights- like a mouse had run across the bright electric light that glimmered inside. But it wasn’t a mouse, how could it survive in there? The glass was murky with age and grime, shone green in the predawn light- and for one crazy moment, it seemed as if it were an eye- a cat’s eye peering down at me. Narrow and seething with hate.

When we bought a new mallet in ‘53, at last, they put her out to pasture. They put the old bitch in the deadline at the edge of camp, with a bad-ordered caboose and old Mogul for company. And there she sat for a few years, getting rustier and rustier, while the weeds grew around her- and nobody missed her, for the new mallet was a pain too, but it was a damn sight better than Norma Jean.

There was a queer fellow who come out of town to live with us. He was sixteen, with a hunched, warped and terrible back, and a face that looked smashed in. He was smart enough, but ditched high school to live in the woods- we could all see why.

His no-good father was some Northern Pacific engineer, who came into Aberdeen on a logging job, screwed some whore, and departed the next morning. His mother was said whore. The funny thing was he had such a deep love of trains. We all liked our job- in that way that working men do, with that bit of resentment that we weren’t paid better- but the kid was a fucking obsessive. He brought a camera, and how many times he snapped photos of us and the engines, I don’t know. He swept the shop and polished the lokies, and made us look like a class act- and aside from pissing around with the camera, he worked hard. Never did he have to redo something.

But his favorite engine was Norma Jean. Maybe it was because she was the biggest, or looked lonely out there, with all her fellow invalids now scrapped. But, if you ask me, it was because she was NP, just like his old man. The kid would go out and sit with her, talk to her. And she’d watch him. I know she did. I can only imagine- the old fucking thing, with its swirling glass cateracts and murky pupils, gazing at this vague shape. So feeble now, no steam to move, grass growing up through her drivers. She was a sorry state- and the kid was so big into trains, he pitied her. He pitied her like an old woman, living alone in the woods, all her friends moved away.

We scrapped her one year- I can’t remember what year, but we did it in the spring. Summer was getting on, and we didn’t want the cutter’s torch starting a grass fire- and management wanted her gone, so we let him at it.

He started in the morning, while we were all in the office, getting our train orders. As I walked out to my engine, I saw him coming back with his mask up waving like a fucking lunatic, screaming, “BLEEDING, IT’S BLEEDING, DEAR CHRIST, IT’S BLEEDING!”

And god damned if it wasn’t! It was sludge, thick muddy sludge, oozing out of the cylinder cocks! And it was red, too- a deep, fucking crimson red!.. Probably from rust, probably. Probably from all the shit in her flues- but it looked like blood, or shit. Or shit mixed with blood.

And the kid came along, and he wept. He wept like he lost his grandma. He wept for two hours and ran off, and we didn’t see him again for three days. But he didn’t come back to work until Norma Jean was all gone.

I live in town now- they cooped me up in an apartment, so I wouldn’t cause much trouble. Besides, Railroad Camp is closed. I’ve got a Chevy pickup and a camper shell, and I go up in the woods to work and play. They run the engines out of Crane River now, and they’ve got a single mallet stuffed and mounted at the shops. The rest of the engines are either scrapped, or scattered round two states as display pieces. One’s still running in Snoqualmie- so I’ve heard.

I was going to work this morning, and this song comes on the radio, with Elton John singing, “Goodbye, Norma Jean, though I never knew you at all,” and I knew I had to write this. It made me laugh at first, but now it isn’t funny. It isn’t funny at all.


End file.
